Mother refuses to breastfeed her baby born with an incurable disease

A distraught mother has refused to breastfeed her premature baby, dubbing it an ‘alien’ after the child was born with an extremely rare, incurable condition that causes her skin to grow seven times faster than usual.

The 28-year-old woman gave birth to the baby girl at a government-run hospital in Patna district of Bihar, India on Sunday. The young parents, who claim to be traumatised by the birth, called the child a curse and refused to accept her.

The baby has a disease called Harlequin Ichthyosis, which causes widespread and persistent thick, dry, “fish-scale” skin. It happens due to an acute case of malnutrition causing thickening of the skin and facial deformities.

Doctors believe that the girl wouldn’t survive for long as none of her organs have developed properly and that the probability of survival of such cases is only one in 10 million.